Mach Natural Resources Q1 2026 Earnings Call - Pivot to Oil-Weighted Drilling Amidst Low Gas Basis

Daryl, Earnings Call Moderator, Mach Natural Resources: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us, and welcome to Mach Natural Resources first quarter 2026 earnings call. During this morning’s call, the speakers will be making forward-looking statements that cannot be confirmed by reference to existing information, including statements regarding expectations, projections, future performance, and the assumptions underlying such statements. Please note a number of factors may cause actual results to differ materially from their forward-looking statements, including the factors identified and discussed in their press release and in other SEC filings. For a further discussion of risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ from those in such forward-looking statements, please read the company’s filings with the SEC. Please recognize that except as required by law, they undertake no duty to update any forward-looking statements, and you should not place undue reliance on such statements.

They may refer to some non-GAAP financial measures in today’s discussion. For reconciliation from non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please reference their press release and supplemental tables, which are available on Mach’s website and their 10-Q, which will also be available on their website when filed. Today’s speakers are Tom Ward, CEO, and Kevin White, CFO. Tom will give an introduction and overview. Kevin will discuss Mach’s financial results, and then the call will be open for questions. With that, I will turn the call over to Mr. Tom Ward. Tom?

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Thank you, Daryl. Welcome to Mach Natural Resources first quarter earnings update. Each quarter, we reiterate the company’s four strategic pillars that have guided us since our founding in 2017. The first pillar I will discuss is disciplined execution. We bought only free cash flowing assets at discounts to the producing property’s PV-10. This allowed us to purchase producing assets without paying for any upside, even though over time we have proven significant upside exists. Each year, Mach publishes every well we’ve drilled and the overall IRR based on the year’s price for oil and gas. We’ve averaged approximately 50% rates of return on drilling program since our program started in 2018. Said another way, we’ve invested more than $1.3 billion in properties that others would give no value to and returned excellent results.

You can see that on page nine of our investor presentation that our free cash flow break-even pricing is best in class for both oil and natural gas. It is rare, if not unheard of, to be a leader in both. It would be difficult to duplicate what we have built. In 2017, we had a strong opinion that the market was entering a time of distress. We focused on buying free cash flow at valuations most sellers would not even consider at first. We called it the stages of grief. Ultimately, we did not deal with management teams, but their lenders. Either through forced sales or the Section 363 bankruptcy process, we did not anticipate the COVID event, but we did anticipate investor rejection of our industry from the poor results of the previous decade in chasing growth with high debt levels.

The result was that our initial unitholders prospered by receiving more than twice their investment through distributions and still owning a company with an enterprise value of more than $3 billion. The purchases we have made continue to bear fruit through their cash flow streams, midstream systems, land that is held by production, and continued drilling on properties we did not have to pay for. Even our purchases since the IPO have been contributing to our drilling program. One would have thought that post the 2022 run-up in prices, that it’d be hard to purchase any valuable drilling locations without paying for upside. However, as we review our potential 2026 locations, we’re drilling on acquisitions from XTO, Paloma, Cheyenne, Flycatcher, Sabinal, and IKAV, which were all made post-December 2023. The second pillar to discuss is disciplined reinvestment rate.

We maintain a reinvestment rate of less than 50% of operating cash flow to optimize distributions to shareholders. We did not establish Mach to grow our production through drilling. Our drilling program is set to stabilize our production. As I mentioned, our inventory is best in class for both oil and natural gas reinvestment. In 2026, move down in natural gas is being offset by a move up in oil prices. Mach has a unique ability to react to these commodity price changes by pivoting from 1 commodity to another to maximize rates of return. We have prioritized our drilling schedule to take advantage of these price changes. Starting May 1st, we moved in our 1st rig to start drilling for oil in the Oswego formation in Kingfisher County, Oklahoma. This is an area that’s well known to us.

We’ve drilled more than 250 Oswego locations since 2021 with very good results. In the presentation, we’re showing that at $75 flat oil, the changes in 2025 Oswego rates return from 39% to 90%. $85 flat oil prices move the program returns to 145%. We let pricing dictate where we spend capital. We will also move in a rig to drill southern Oklahoma Ardmore Basin assets that we acquired from Cheyenne and Flycatcher purchases in 2024. The third oil-weighted rig will be moving into the Red Fork sand of western Oklahoma. The majority of Red Fork locations were acquired by our limited leasing program and trades with others from our Cimarex acquisition in 2021.

This shift in drilling will amount to adding 3 oil-weighted rigs by postponing the Deep Anadarko dry gas program. We may also delay the completion of our San Juan Mancos program until 2027 to add another oil rig in the Clear Fork formation from the Sabinal acquisition. By making these changes, we can keep our reinvestment level below 50% of operating cash flow in 2026, even though we remain optimistic about the long-term potential of our natural gas assets in the Deep Anadarko Basin and San Juan Basin. We now have 5 wells with more than 90 days of production in the Deep Anadarko.

These 5 wells have averaged 90-day cumulative production of more than 12 million cubic feet of gas per day, while our 15 Bcf of gas type curve is projected to be 10.6 million cubic feet of gas per day. In the San Juan, we’ve begun our 2026 drilling program, where we have 1 rig working, drilling Mancos Shale wells. The San Juan Mancos is fast becoming known as a world-class natural gas asset with potential for meeting the growing demand that we expect to see in the Western markets over the next 5 years. We have 575,000 acres that are held by production and can be developed at any time the market allows. Currently, we will drill 7 wells during the summer’s drilling window.

We continue to believe that we will be substantially lower than historical drilling costs as we bring in new service providers from the MidCon and work with existing service providers in the San Juan to work with our dedicated staff. Our San Juan drilling program in 2025 was exceptional. We drilled five wells that came online last fall and have produced more than 14 Bcf of gas and continue to produce over 60 million cubic feet of gas today. These wells have been compared to the best set of wells drilled in the U.S. The San Juan gives us long-term natural gas optionality. When we acquired IKAV, we inherited a volume production contract that runs through 2030. Even with our limited drilling program, we can keep our production in the San Juan flat at approximately 300 million cubic feet of gas per day.

We currently have approximately 65% of the volumes from the San Juan producing on this contract at a price of $1.72. If basis continues to be low, we have an effective hedge, and if basis moves lower, it will benefit from our drilling program and time as production payment amortizes. This is one of the larger volumes of natural gas that has access to the growing Western markets as they develop. Mach has 3 million acres of land that are not going anywhere. We have time because our assets are held by production with few lease expiration dates. This large inventory of investment opportunities was the result of acquisitions made over time since 2018 and gives us maximum flexibility to choose where and when to drill to deliver the best-in-class results. Our third pillar to discuss today is to maintain financial strength.

This pillar is designed to keep our leverage in check. Historically, we have kept our leverage at or below 1 time. The IKAV and Sabinal acquisitions last September have moved our leverage up to approximately 1.3 times. Our goal is to move that ratio back to our desired level before we make any more acquisitions that require substantial debt. Therefore, our acquisition strategy is currently on hold unless we find an acquisition that’s accretive to our cash flow for distribution using equity to lower our debt levels. In the meantime, we can continue with our drilling program and let time move on as our leverage ratio down. We continue to have interest by sellers to exchange production for equity, where we might be able to lower leverage by increasing our cash available for distribution to maintain the status quo.

Our goal is to not move away from our current method of distribution unless we feel it is necessary. In that case, we can always use some of our distribution for debt reduction. It is safe to say that our debt levels are very manageable, but are a pebble in my shoe that I’d prefer to move away from and get back to one times leverage. Our final pillar continues to be the most important, maximize distribution to equity holders. This pillar is the culmination of all we work for. Since inception, our goal is to find and acquire cash flowing assets at distressed prices, reinvest less than 50% of our operating cash flow, keep our leverage low and maximize this pillar. We have been and continue to be successful. The evidence is in our industry-leading distribution. You can see this in two ways.

Our company has had a cash return on capital invested of more than 20% every year since our inception. We have averaged 35% CROCI over the last five years. I believe we’re in rare air here. Only a few tech companies can match our CROCI. We have also averaged 15% yield since the beginning of 2024. Both are industry-leading. I’ll now turn the call over to Kevin to discuss the first quarter financial results.

Kevin White, Chief Financial Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Thanks, Tom. For the quarter, our production of 158,000 BOE per day was 16% oil, 70% natural gas, and 14% NGLs. Our average realized prices were $69.73.

Per barrel of oil, that’s a 20% increase from fourth quarter, $2.74 for Mcf of gas and $23.75 per barrel of NGLs. Of the $366 million total oil and gas revenues, the relative contribution for oil was 42%, 45% for gas, and 13% for NGLs. On the expense side, worth pointing out, our lease operating expense was $101 million, or only $7.12 per BOE. Cash G&A was approximately $5 million, or only $0.37 per BOE. We ended the quarter with $53 million in cash and $305 million of availability under the credit facility. Total revenues, including our hedges and midstream activities, total $286 million.

Adjusted EBITDA was $195 million, we generated $170 million of operating cash flow. Spent $75 million in development CapEx, which represents 40% of our operating cash flow after interest. In the quarter, we generated $107 million of cash available for distribution, resulting in a distribution of $0.64 per unit. Which will be paid on June 4th to holders of record on May 21st. With that, Daryl, we’ll turn it back to you to open the line for questions.

Daryl, Earnings Call Moderator, Mach Natural Resources: Thank you so much. We’ll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please while we poll for your questions. Our first question has come from the line of Bert Donais with William Blair. Please proceed with your questions.

Bert Donais, Analyst, William Blair: Wanted to see if your shift back to the kind of oilier Oswego drilling program, how quickly can that move the needle? Are you maybe at 16% oil now, can that get to 20%-25% oil over the next few years? Does maybe the productivity from your gas assets kinda just offset that with higher volumes but at the same mix?

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: No, not really. It basically keeps our oil production from declining, by moving to the oil side of the business. We might grow a % or so a year, really it’s maintaining oil production rather than continue to see a decline.

Bert Donais, Analyst, William Blair: That’s perfect. That makes sense. The second one, your low CapEx requirements continue to impress. I just wanna maybe understand, is there inflation built into that or maybe built into your LOE, just with some of the cost changes we’re seeing, you know, as a result of the Iranian conflict that, maybe, you know, some of that spending may move, or do you have some of that locked in with your vendors and maybe over certain durations?

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: We don’t have anything really locked in. We can move rigs at really 30-45 day intervals, so we really can move back and forth from different areas as needed for higher rates of return. We are seeing some oilfield inflation, thus I think why it’s important to move quickly before inflation hits. The, you know, as always, the oilfield services job is to get our rates of return down to 20%, and we want to drill wells that still have. In fact, the lowest we have on the four thirty curve of the oil wells we’ll be drilling this year, as of the four thirty curve, was 80%.

It’s really just chasing the best areas and spending CapEx as our operating cash flow allows us to. I think the goal of the company is that we’ll allow growth if it happens, like if prices move up, but not spending more than 50% of our operating cash flow. It’s not that we’re restricting growth, it’s our high rates of return allows us to grow by spending less, and that’s just what we anticipate continuing to do. Remember that that’s really because of all the assets we bought during the darker days. They continue to throw off free cash flow. Anytime you’re making acquisitions at $20 oil, it just pays big dividends in years later. We’ll reap those benefits for decades.

Bert Donais, Analyst, William Blair: That makes sense. Sounds like you’re staying flexible. Thank you, guys.

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Thank you.

Daryl, Earnings Call Moderator, Mach Natural Resources: Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Michael Scialla with Stephens. Please proceed with your questions.

Michael Scialla, Analyst, Stephens: Morning, guys. I just wanted to see, with the new plans, maintained your guidance. Do you anticipate putting out any new guidance with the shift in the drilling plans? It sounds like you might change your completion plans in the San Juan Basin. I guess when would you make that decision if you do decide to hold off on completing those wells?

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Yeah, sorry, I think, Do you have the question? I don’t think I caught everything. We are gonna delay. We, we’re planning on delaying the Mancos. Go ahead, Kevin. Yeah, sure. Just to Mike, just to answer your question around guidance. You know, we think the CapEx guidance is the as you noted, as we shift to oil, the, you know, we may actually see an acceleration of production versus spendin

Kevin White, Chief Financial Officer, Mach Natural Resources: The CapEx on the gas drilling, particularly in the Mancos. You know, we’ll look to revise guidance as we get moved to the oil program probably mid-year if and when it’s appropriate. It does, just as we look at the model, Those cycle times on these wells are shorter than some of our-

Yeah

deep gas drilling, so it should actually help this year’s cash generation.

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: It’s not that hard of a decision. I mean, usually I would want to, once we spend the capital to drill a well, to not leave it as a DUC. Whenever we can move to a Clear Fork location that, at today’s prices is going to have a 100% rate of return, it’s just really difficult not to defer the gas whenever basis today at the San Juan is low and we think it’ll improve. Still, we don’t want to just guess going into the winter. We’ll probably move that until after the first of the year, it will really depend in the Mancos weather provides us to be when we can move, when we can frack.

We can’t do anything in the New Mexico side until April, I believe. We can on Colorado side as long as we’re on the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, weather permitting. Sorry, Michael.

Michael Scialla, Analyst, Stephens: Go ahead.

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: if I didn’t catch all your questions, just please ask again.

Michael Scialla, Analyst, Stephens: No, that addresses it. I guess it sounds like, you know, even with the shift, there’s no change to the CapEx is gonna remain the same. We probably anticipate some minor shift in the mix of production is what it sounds like, and certainly leave some upside for cash flow with the higher oil mix.

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Yeah, that’s correct.

Michael Scialla, Analyst, Stephens: Wanted to follow up on the Mancos. The 5 wells that you completed last year, looks like based on what you have in your presentation and what you said, Tom, they’re performing extremely well. I think IKAV completed a couple of those, and you guys completed, I think, 3 of them. Wanted to see if you did in fact cut back on the proppant on the wells that you completed. I know you had said you felt like they were being overstimulated and you could save some money there and wanted to see if those results played out the way you thought.

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: We did not change the amount of proppant that IKAV was using. IKAV did use, and we will use less proppant than kind of the industry was earlier. I think that’s moving towards what we’re going to do. If you look at San Juan in general, there were proppant sizes up to 3,000 pounds a foot that we were using closer to 2,000 pounds, and I think it was totally adequate. That we were able to save some money even last year, just through a few other different methods, but not in the proppant size.

Michael Scialla, Analyst, Stephens: Okay. Just so, that line of sight.

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: I think we saved, I think we were saving about $1 million per location. Yeah, $1.5 million per location just from our changes that we made, but it was not in proppant.

Michael Scialla, Analyst, Stephens: Gotcha. You still feel good about that $15 million target that you talked about?

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Oh, yeah. I feel good about something lower. We’ll see. Yes, I feel good about $15 million. There’s no reason to spend $15 million drilling these wells.

Michael Scialla, Analyst, Stephens: Sounds good. Thank you, guys.

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Thank you.

Daryl, Earnings Call Moderator, Mach Natural Resources: Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Jeff Grampp with Northland Capital Markets. Please proceed with your questions.

Jeff Grampp, Analyst, Northland Capital Markets: Morning, guys. Thanks for the time. Tom, I have a question for you on the distribution strategy. It seems like, you know, in recent history, you’ve kind of been comfortable maintaining the 100% payout with current leverage kind of mid-1x. The pebble in your shoe comment makes it seem like perhaps you’re maybe reconsidering that to retain some cash for debt pay down. Is that a fair comment or how do you think about payout ratio over the next few quarters?

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Yeah, I hope not. I do think that over time, it takes care of itself. If you were to look at our model, actually, debt to EBITDA goes down as oil prices have moved. If oil prices move higher or gas goes to where I think it will, it naturally takes care of it by itself. We can always. The reason private credit really likes us so well is because we have so much free cash flow. If you have a 19% yield and you make it a 10% for a while as you pay down debt, it’s not the worst thing.

I’m a holder just like the rest of the unit holders, and I like having Christmas 4 times a year.

Jeff Grampp, Analyst, Northland Capital Markets: Fair enough. Fair enough. That sounds good. For my follow-up, it kind of sounds like the bias based on today’s commodity price dynamic is to defer those gas completions and add that Clear Fork rig. Just wanted to dive into that a bit more. When are you guys kind of targeting potentially adding that Clear Fork rig? Is it as simple as looking at gas and oil prices over the next few months in the strip in making that decision?

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Yeah, I fairly well made it so that it was just like yesterday. It was Yeah. The Clear Fork is clearly a superior rate of return at today’s prices than completing the Mancos. We could start that July first and have kind of a 30-day turnaround. More than likely, unless something changes really dramatically between now and a month from now, we’ll delay the Mancos and bring on a Clear Fork rig.

Jeff Grampp, Analyst, Northland Capital Markets: Got it. Understood. Thank you guys for the time.

Daryl, Earnings Call Moderator, Mach Natural Resources: Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Carson Coronado with Raymond James. Please proceed with your questions.

Carson Coronado, Analyst, Raymond James: Hi there. Good morning. I just wanted to see if you all were going to continue to focus M&A in the current basins you operate in, or is there a willingness to step into new basins? Does the current commodity price environment make it harder to get deals done, with, you know, bid-ask spreads potentially widening?

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: No, I don’t think it’s any harder to get deals done, especially the ones that we have a niche in, which is really staying away from asset-backed security, projects that where they can fund. Larger deals we’re not so good at, areas of real where you pay for a lot of upside. Not so good like the Marcellus or Haynesville or now even the San Juan. The areas we are pretty good at is finding assets that are $100 million-$300 million in size that others aren’t chasing, that we can see some distress for whatever reason.

It might be that gas goes to Waha, where an ABS really can’t go in and hedge very well over a period of time, and they can’t compete with us. There’s always a way to find things that work. Our issue right now is that we have too much debt to really take on more debt, so that we want to move down our debt levels so that we can get back into making those $100 million-$300 million type acquisitions. We can be more aggressive, not on the having to pay for upside, but more aggressive in size if the seller would want to take equity. That’s the only way we could really compete at any size.

Carson Coronado, Analyst, Raymond James: Great. Thank you. I also had a follow-up question on maintenance CapEx. The low decline rate definitely helps keeping the reinvestment rate under 50%. What would be a reasonable maintenance CapEx estimate for us to use?

Kevin White, Chief Financial Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Yes. I think looking at our existing CapEx guidance really. Depending if we’re measuring that based on volume, when we’re drilling gas wells, there’s more volume that come into the system. If we’re drilling oil wells, the equivalent volume is a little bit lower. When, again, as you mentioned, our base decline rate is probably among the lowest, if not the lowest among the independents. That gives us the ability to essentially stay the same size, you know, grow a little bit or shrink a little bit, based on just half of our operating cash flow after interest. I largely equate our guidance CapEx with being kind of maintenance CapEx. It’s not a little bit more productive than maintenance CapEx.

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Yeah, that’s right. Our drilling program is designed to keep our production flattish. That could be up to, down to, up three or four, down three or four, depending on what prices are. You really won’t see a tremendous growth from drilling. That allows us to distribute back more to unitholders.

Carson Coronado, Analyst, Raymond James: Great. Thank you.

Daryl, Earnings Call Moderator, Mach Natural Resources: Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Ron Sanchez. Please proceed with your questions.

Ron Sanchez, Analyst: I was just wondering, what would be your average break-even price on natural gas? I mean, Yeah, that’s all. Edging.

Kevin White, Chief Financial Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Sure. you know, it’s basically around $1.72, and we’ve just today posted a new investor presentation. We have a slide on that on slide 9, where we show our break even for both gas drilling and oil drilling. It’s again among the best in the peers. you know, for us, as Tom’s mentioned many times before, you know, we, those are good numbers that we’re able to achieve with good cost control, but we’re generally just chasing the highest internal rate of return in our portfolio.

Ron Sanchez, Analyst: Thank you.

Daryl, Earnings Call Moderator, Mach Natural Resources: Thank you. Our next question’s come from the line of Derrick Whitfield with Texas Capital. Please proceed with your questions.

Derrick Whitfield, Analyst, Texas Capital: Tom, good morning, thanks for taking my questions.

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Sure.

Derrick Whitfield, Analyst, Texas Capital: Going back to your four Q commentary on divestitures, does the current higher priced crude environment that we’re seeing today, does that change your view on the need to pursue some of the monetizations you were talking about during four Q?

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Derrick, we were talking about maybe having a partner in the deep Anadarko. I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not. We did go out to a few parties. The gas prices have been lower. I’m not sure that we would get paid enough to give up any production that’s already flowing now. I’m not really a seller at today’s gas prices, so it becomes harder to do until prices move. We really weren’t looking at selling any oil projects. But it was really more around could we sell some non-EBITDA generating assets like leases in order to pay down some debt. I doubt that happens, but we’ll know more next quarter.

Derrick Whitfield, Analyst, Texas Capital: It does make sense. Maybe just with respect to the Permian, while not as economic as your Oswego, are there levers there you’re considering to increase production in the current environment?

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: The Clear Fork is in Robertson County on the shelf. We’ll having a rig there, depending on what our operating cash flow looks like and how much we, you know, how close we can get to 50%, we could keep a rig there for the rest of the year. We’ll see how it all looks, right now we are gonna have a rig there, moving down from Oklahoma, in by the first of the year. That is in the Permian. You know, those wells are right at 100% rates of return.

Derrick Whitfield, Analyst, Texas Capital: That’s great. sorry, I didn’t pick that up, Tom. I’m just joining the call late. maybe one more, if I could, on service costs. I know you commented a little bit earlier on it, but just could you speak to what you’re seeing in the Anadarko at present and what your expectations would be if oil prices remain elevated as they are today?

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Yeah. If oil prices stay where they are, it would take a fairly high gas price to make us move back to drilling gas wells. Last year that happened as oil prices fell. Today, even, you know, at the Cal strip, 27 strip is $72. That’s good enough for us to keep rigs working. The flexibility of the moving between oil and gas is good. We have a tremendous backlog of oil locations. As you’re seeing now, we can move in several rigs and drill different locations across Western Oklahoma, and in the Permian.

It’s really just price dependent, but it’s really astounding that we were able to put together 2 million acres without having to pay for it in one of the most oil and natural gas rich basins in the world, in the Anadarko Basin. That is another like our production, it will pay dividends to us for decades.

Derrick Whitfield, Analyst, Texas Capital: Great. And Tom, just on the service cost, like what would your expectations be in the Anadarko if we remain in this higher oil price environment?

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Yeah. We’re seeing, You say service cost? Yeah.

Derrick Whitfield, Analyst, Texas Capital: Yeah. Service cost. My apologies.

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: We’re seeing bits are going up, steel is going up, labor costs are going up, fuel surcharges are going up. We are starting to see the effects of inflation. We know from 2022 that that comes fairly quickly. It’ll all have to be put into the calculation for how much we can drill, depending on what prices we’re paying. We’re still using our current AFEs. We change AFE every month, depending on where prices are. We price out for every well, series of wells we do. We’re fairly quick to react to both oil and gas prices and service costs.

Derrick Whitfield, Analyst, Texas Capital: Great update. Thanks for your time.

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Thank you.

Daryl, Earnings Call Moderator, Mach Natural Resources: Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Charles Meade with Johnson Rice. Please proceed with your questions.

Charles Meade, Analyst, Johnson Rice: Good morning, Tom and Kevin. I got dropped from the call for some reason too. Tom, you’ve mentioned four oily plays here today. The Oswego, which you gave us a lot of detail on, also the Ardmore, which I guess is really the location rather than the play, the Ardmore, the Red Fork, and also the Clear Fork. Can not to get down into all the details, but can you give us an idea, you know, how those plays rank in your appetite for more drilling and how much, you know, how much running room you have in those?

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Sure. The Sycamore, it’s a Mississippian member of the SCOOP in the what we call the Ardmore Basin. It’s Shoal McLehorn Field, basically in Stephens County, Southern Oklahoma. That’s going to have very, very high rates of return at today’s oil price. They’re, you know, fairly deep, expensive wells, but very good. Continental has most of that area and maybe a private company, Citadel. It’s good, we only have 3 locations to drill. We look to have the consistent operating. The next best is the Oswego, and that’s more consistent, and we have dozens, if not hundreds of locations left to drill in the Oswego.

We could even move from the Stephens County after we complete those wells to 2 rigs in the Oswego if oil prices remain elevated. The Clear Fork was a We picked up from Sabinal would be number 3, and that, as I mentioned, I have a rig going there in July. Lastly, because of just a little more gas, is the Western Oklahoma Red Fork, and that if gas prices were to move up, it could move up in the hit parade. Today, that would be our fourth and fourth.

Charles Meade, Analyst, Johnson Rice: That is great detail, Tom. Thank you.

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: I think even there, the Red Fork is going to be about 80% rates of return.

Charles Meade, Analyst, Johnson Rice: Got it. That’s great detail, what I was looking for. Excuse me. My follow-up is on San Juan Basin, I guess, supply-demand and marketing. You know, when you bought that asset from IKAV, and, you know, in that earlier presentation, you gave us a lot of detail about where that gas can go and what the options are. The prices are pretty tough out there right now. You know, you think, you know, a lot of gas wants to get to the Gulf Coast, but you’ve got the Permian and Waha between you and the Gulf Coast, if you wanted to go that way.

That’s, I guess, a long intro to say what are the dynamics that we can watch from our seats on, you know, that would signify or could be precursors to, more favorable, pricing in that basin?

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Yeah, I mean, at the time we bought the IKAV assets last summer, going in and closed in September, I wouldn’t have thought that our basis, our hedge was a benefit. Basically, we have 65% that we bought on a long-term contract from BP that expires in 2030. That’s that effectively is at $1.72. You know, since that time, really due to weather, winter not coming to the West, basically, we almost stand alone in having the low basis of public companies with the San Juan. That now has, you know, hovered around $1 of what we receive now. I do think that’s coming back.

But to answer your question, it’s really more pipe getting out, going west, having a larger LNG facility in Mexico, getting gas. I think the Asian sales point will be wanting more Western gas coming across LNG to Asia. That all happens over time. It’s really pretty good for us now that we didn’t have to pay for that gas. We bought it at $1.72 or less. As it amortizes out over time, that gives us time to not only have the LNG market expanding, which I believe it’s going to. There’s a new pipe going across the Navajo Nation now, I believe, or will be FID’d.

Along with that, getting gas to the data center build outs in Southern California, especially the Phoenix market, which seems to be expanding. There’s some interest in even getting our gas to the west into more of the upper mid western markets and even into the Pacific Northwest. There will be an expansion of gas coming out of the West. Really between Hilcorp and us in San Juan, we control the vast majority of it. It’s a good place to be as long as you’re patient. It’s a 5-year program.

Charles Meade, Analyst, Johnson Rice: Got it. That is great detail. Thank you, Tom.

Tom Ward, Chief Executive Officer, Mach Natural Resources: Thank you.

Daryl, Earnings Call Moderator, Mach Natural Resources: Thank you so much. We have reached the end of our question and answer session. With that does bring our call to a close. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and enjoy the rest of your day.